Description
America's Book shows how the Bible decisively shaped American national history even as that history influenced the use of Scripture. It explores the rise of a strongly Protestant Bible civilization in the early United States that was then fractured by debates over slavery, contested by growing numbers of non-Protestant Americans (Catholics, Jews, agnostics), and torn apart by the Civil War.This first comprehensive history of the Bible in America explains why Tom Paine's anti-biblical tract The Age of Reason (1794) precipitated such dramatic effects, how innovations in printing by the American Bible Society created the nation's publishing industry, why Nat Turner's slave rebellion of 1831 and the bitter election of 1844 marked turning points in the nation's engagement with Scripture, and why Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were so eager to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible.Noll's magisterial work highlights not only the centrality of the Bible for the nation's most influential religious figures (Methodist Francis Asbury, Richard Allen of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Catholic Bishop Francis Kenrick, Jewish scholar Solomon Schechter, agnostic Robert Ingersoll), but also why it was important for presidents like Abraham Lincoln; notable American women like Harriet Beecher Stowe, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Frances Willard; dedicated campaigners for civil rights like Frederick Douglass and Francis Grimké; lesser-known figures like Black authors Maria Stewart and Harriet Jacobs; and a host of others of high estate and low. The book also illustrates how the more religiously plural period from Reconstruction to the early twentieth century saw Scripture become a much more fragmented, though still significant, force in American culture, particularly as a source of hope and moral authority for Americans on both sides of the battle over white supremacy-both for those hoping to fight it, and for others seeking to justify it.
Table of Contents
IntroductionPart I. Creating a Bible Civilization1) The Bible after Independence and before Paine2) The Paine Provocation3) Custodial Protestants vs. Sectarian Protestants4) Francis Asbury and the MethodistsPart II. A Protestant Bible Civilization5) The Bible Civilization in American History6) Naming, Writing, and Speaking in a Hebrew Republic7) Publishing8) Personal Religion9) The African American BiblePart III. Fractures10) Slavery and the Bible before the Missouri Compromise11) Slavery and the Bible, 1819-183312) Democracy13) The Law and a Christian America14) The Common School ExceptionPart IV. The Eclipse of Sola Scriptura15) 184416) Whose Bible? (Catholics)17) Whose Bible? (Lutherans, Jews, Nay-sayers, Natives)18) Whose Bible? (Women)19) The War Before the War20) Scriptural Arguments in Context21) The Civil WarPart V. After the Bible Civilization22) 1865-187523) The Centennial Divide: 1876 and After24) Protestant Wounds of War25) Protestant Realignments26) Marginal No More (Jews and Catholics)Part VI. Toward the Present27) Still A Bible Nation28) An Enduring Cultural Landmark29) Civil Religion30) Still Under a BushelEpilogueShort Titles for NotesNotesAcknowledgmentsGeneral IndexScripture IndexIndex of Scriptural Persons and Events
